My Dell laptop thankfully was not amongst those that spectacularly combust and were recalled. Regular reader(s) will know though that it has a curious affliction whereby keys drop off and go AWOL, first the 'Z' and then the 'W' have vanished in this manner.
Having being a Church based worker I am adept at improvising and also furnishing DIY repairs (Gaffa tape is a staple requirement for Youth ministers I reckon) and so I have had a bash at fixing the Laptop. Using the weird key below the escape button for which I know of no purpose and the "Alt Gr" key (again, no idea) as donors I have then grafted them into the correct position and then applied Tippex to re-mark them.
You probably can't tell at all as it's such a good job but for the more observant and technically adept, here's the results of the invisible repair ;-)
I guess you don't write in foreign languages then... Alt Gr is a neat way of getting to the accents "Alt Gr" + "a" = á and so on.
"Alt Gr" + "4" = € (handy for business bods)
In MS applications it opens a world of "fun" for most keys
¬ and ¦ are useful in certain scripting languages and used by software bods.
If you want replcaement keys you might be interested in:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Dell-Latitude-Cpi-replacement-keys_W0QQitemZ250032182979QQihZ015QQcategoryZ31568QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting
My Dell does the same too. I have lost the T key and the up and down arrows. Dell are rubbish I believe! They must be if someone is selling the keys on ebay! It must be a really common problem!
The Alt Gr button has a big function here in Belgium. We use this key to use with the number keys above the letters.
1 - |
2 - @
3 - #
4 - {
5 - [
6 - ^
9 - {
0 - }
En also with the buttons at the right of the letters:
Next to P
^¨[ $*]
Next to L
mM ù%´ µ£
Next to M
,? ;. :/ =+~